The Deed Is Done

I know I've been talking a lot about chickens here lately, and I promise, I'll get on to other subjects soon.  There are several rough drafts in the offing on such fascinating subjects as gluten-free bread choices, gf restaurant options and gardening.  But at the present moment we're frankly consumed by chickens.

Jon, manning the cone

This past Tuesday was butchering day and beyond a slight mishap with a knife and the occasional threatening clouds, it went off without a hitch (at least from the human's perspective, the mob may have had a different interpretation).  Thanks to our county's conservation district office, we were able to rent for a very small fee a propane heated scalder, killing cones and the amazing Featherman de-featherer.  Our good friend Jon of Insurgent Chicken blog fame walked us novices through the process and lent valuable and capable hands throughout the day.  For one of the best pictorial examples of a butchering day, check out his Butcher Day blog post.

The scalder and Featherman de-featherer

I won't go into great detail about the in's and out's of dispatching a chicken, partly out of sensitivity to some of my vegan friends and partly out of ignorance as I avoided that portion of the day's events.  But suffice it to say, using a cone is much more humane and gentle way of doing the deed than the stories you may have heard from your grandparents.


Speaking of grandma's stories, the chore of plucking chickens has come a long way, baby!  The chicken still needs to be scalded to loosen the feathers but using a propane scalding tank that maintains a relatively even temperature makes the process soooo much easier.  In addition, I have nothing but awe for the Featherman machine - seriously, this gadget is incredible, taking a fully feathered fowl to rubber chicken status in about 30 seconds.  Our birds seemed to be more "feathery" than the average Cornish Rock so it took a bit longer (like, oh, 40 whole seconds) for the machine to render them naked.  As much as I appreciate the old school method for doing things, there is no way on God's green earth I would subject myself to manual removal of chicken feathers, so being able to rent this baby was a lifesaver. 

The final step is removal of the innards and icing down the birds before freezing.   Being the little biologist that I am, I spent most of my day doing this (yes, I was one of those students who enjoyed dissecting frogs).  We saved livers, hearts, and gizzards.  Birds went into the freezer the next day after sitting on ice overnight.

Chicken after de-feathering

Scalding

De-feathering

The husband at the evisceration station

Because it's a family affair

Altogether we had 33 birds weighing a total of 132.6 pounds for an average weight of just a smidge over 4 pounds.  The largest bird was a hefty 5.6 pounds.  We'll do a recap post in a week or so with our thoughts on what we'd do differently next time.

The end of the story